Strathmore Women's Triathlon

The Strathmore Women's Triathlon is my favorite race ever! It has the absolute best atmosphere of any other race I have ever done. It is a sprint triathlon with a 500m pool swim, 20km bike and a 5km run. I have done this race before and because I swim a bit faster I am usually in the last heat. Waiting around I usually end up getting a bit nervous (and bored) so this year I decided to volunteer as the swim captain. What I did was work in the pool all morning getting the girls organized and sent in their heats, and then when the last girl went I quickly changed and got in the pool myself to do the race. What an amazing experience as I volunteer I had! I loved seeing everyone and drawing of the excited energy. Now, if you have never been to or done an all girls race, I highly recommend it. It is so much fun - and NO BOYS! It is our day!

The morning went quickly and I had a great time cheering on the girls from the pool deck. I unfortunately did not get to see the action outside on the bike and run but, I was really having fun on the pool deck! Ther were a lot of high-5's, smiles and cheers!

When the last group of girls was set to go, I handed the swim captain duties over to my friend Ali, quickly got changed, and went over to the timing mat. I crossed and jumped into the water. I counted my laps and they went by fairly quickly. I felt a bit heavy due to the bagel I had eaten only a 1/2 hour before but, considering I have only swam about 5 or 6 times since my 1/2 Ironman at the beginning of July it was a great swim.

I came out of the water (last of course) and I got a huge cheering from all the wonderful volunteers I had worked with that morning. When I ran out to transition I easily found my bike as many girls were done the race and had removed their gear from transition. I grabbed my bike and headed out to the highway. On the way out it is down hill and I had a great tailwind. I was flying and wanted to try to catch as many girls on the bike as I could. The way back was slightly harder but, I was still feeling great and was having so much fun going so fast. YEah all teh training on the bike is really paying off . When I rounded the corner back to transition I could hear Angie screaming about how she couldn't believe how fast I was. I was happy and feeling great!

I flew through transition and headed out for the run. My friend Leo ran along the side of the course for the first kilometer and cheered me on. I was going at a great pace, with a high turn-over and was passing as many girls as I could. I could see my teammate Karen up ahead and my goal was to catch her. At the turn-around however,Karen saw me and saw that I was less than 100m back of her and she really turned on the jets (I knew that would happen once she saw me! Karen and I are great for each other as we really push each other during training and racing - and she is incredibly nice! I couldn't ask for a better training buddy).

As I hit the 3km mark a bad side stitch hit me (damn bagel!). I tried to maintain pace and luckily still continued to pass girls that had started ahead of me on the swim and who I knew were my biggest competition. At the 3.5km point Leo reappeared and started to run and yell (in a cheering way) at me. I hurt so bad by the 4km mark I stopped and hunched over. Leo urged me on and I felt like someone had stabbed me in the ribs. "Just around the corner and you're done!" he yelled. "Liar" I yelled back (I was standing right beside the 4km marker!). He then told me I had passed all but 1 girl who was ahead of me and I was in contention for 2nd place overall. I tried to push as hard as I could but, my body was screaming at me. AS I got closer to the finish line Angie was screaming at me to run faster and I did all I could to go faster. I crossed the finish line in 1:09:17 - accomplishing my goal of finishing sub 1:10!

At the end of the day I had a great experience! I told Deanne who is the race director that I will be back next year as swim captain. As for my results, I did finish second overall! I came first in my age category and had the fastest bike split of the day. This helps boost my confidence heading into Nationals next week.